


Lion's Kiss

by blue_wonderer



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Gen, but also future!Barry and future!Iris, kid!Barry and kid!Iris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 12:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13481886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/blue_wonderer
Summary: When Barry was little, before Everything, Joe and Henry took Barry and Iris to the movies to seeThe Lion King.Years later, Barry and Iris watch the movie with their kids.





	Lion's Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> [Inspired by this post.](https://wonderingtheblue.tumblr.com/post/170098425261/trufflemores-bisexuallaurellance#notes) Also, I apologize in advance for my verb tenses and what a complete farce I make of them.
> 
> "Pinned ya!" and "Pinned ya again!" are lines repeated by Nala in _The Lion King_.

Once, Joe and Henry took Barry and Iris out to the movies to see _The Lion King_. 

Nora couldn’t come, Barry doesn't remember why, even after he so painstakingly collected, pinned, preserved, and curated every stray memory of her after That Night. But he’d been too young to really understand where she was—it must have been work-related. He does remember talking to her on the phone about the movie. 

_“Don’t let your father fall asleep,”_ she’d teased. _“He snores.”_

“You can’t fall asleep at the movies!” Barry had exclaimed back because it's _the movies_ and _why would you do that?_

_“Your father can and will. He fell asleep when he took me to see_ The Nutcracker _the first year we dated.”_

Barry had no idea what The Nutcracker was, but he had been suitably scandalized by the entire idea. “No!” 

He remembers being at the ticket booth, his hand in his dad’s big, warm one as he leaned to whisper into Iris’s ear. “We have to make sure they don’t fall asleep.” 

Shoulder twitching at the tickle of his breath on her ear and neck, she’d turned to him with brows set together in confusion. “You’re not supposed to fall asleep at the movies.” 

“Mom said that they might.” 

A look had come over Iris then, a look she got sometimes when Barry mentioned his mom. It was a look that made Barry think of their family vacation to the beach the summer before, when a wave had taken his toy boat right out of his hand. Dad had put him on his shoulders as they watched the tide carry it out, tiny among the great white caps. When Iris thought of her mom, her face always made Barry think of that tiny toy boat. It’s a small, lost look so he reaches out with his other hand and holds on to hers and _squeezes_ so she doesn’t get pulled out by a wave like his boat had. 

“They might _snore_ ,” Barry says, and is satisfied when Iris seems both distracted from her sadness and appropriately dismayed and worried. “So, we have to make sure they don’t fall asleep.” 

In the theater, Barry distinctly remembers sitting between his dad and Iris. When the lights had dimmed his stomach had dropped in fluttery anticipation, like it had when Mom and Dad had taken him on the Ferris Wheel a couple of weeks before. It was then, in the quiet, that Barry had heard a soft snore beside him. Eyes wide, he’d looked over to see his dad with his head back, asleep. Even years later he would remember the mountainous outline of his dad’s nose silhouetted against the dim blue glow of the room. 

Amazed, Barry had gotten Iris’s attention. Her eyes had widened before she stifled a conspiratorial laugh and leaned over Barry to help him poke his dad awake. Henry had snuffled and snorted, jumping with a whispered _“I’m up!”_ , causing Barry and Iris to giggle so hard they had to put their hands over their mouths to keep quiet. Joe had laughed, too, and had said, _“You kids better keep an eye on him.”_

After the song “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”, Iris had jabbed Barry in the ribs with her bony elbow while nodding toward Joe, lips pressed over a grin. _Joe_ was the one asleep that time, mouth flopped wide open, and they’d worked hard to keep their laughter as secret and muted as they could while they reached over and tickled him awake. 

He remembers Iris smiling at him then with the soft lights of the movie dancing upon her face. Her smile had made his heart airy and heavy all at once, like it was too big for his chest, and he’d wanted to tell her every single joke he knew from his favorite _101 Knock-Knock Jokes_ book right then, just to keep her smiling. But they’d been in a movie, and he knew it was impolite to talk during one, so he’d given her some of his M &Ms instead. 

Upon the closing credits, both Iris and Barry had immediately demanded to watch it again. They hadn’t, but a few days later Nora brought home two Simba and Nala stuffed animal sets, one set each for Iris and Barry. They had magnets in their noses so they would “kiss” if they got close enough. 

“Just remember,” Joe had called insistently from the dining room over the remains of their meal. “Kissing is gross.” 

“That’s not a real kiss,” Iris had declared, a clear authority on the subject as she looked dubiously at how the Nala in her hands was smooshed up against Simba’s nose. 

“Well,” Barry had reasoned shyly. “Lion’s don’t have lips, right? So, this is a lion’s way of kissing.” 

“A lion’s kiss,” Iris had murmured. “Let’s try it.” 

“We’re not lions,” Barry had pointed out, because he knew she hadn't meant the dolls. But since he was a boy and not really interested in the lip kind of kissing—especially with _girls_ —he agreed when she dared him to. Except when they first tried, they went kind of too hard into each other and ended up bumping foreheads instead of noses, causing them to fall over in a heap of groans and giggles. 

Barry, breathless with laughter, had been utterly helpless. But Iris, always quick on the uptake, had flopped on Barry with her Nala doll and cried triumphantly, “'Pinned ya _again_ '!” 

Years later, Barry knows that Joe and Henry had pretended to be asleep those times during the movie, just to get them to laugh. Barry knows this because he’s since had two infants laid on his chest, laughing and _laughing_ at the sound of his loud fake-snoring. 

And those two babies are five years old now. Don is already curled up with Iris in the blanket fort, glued to her like a Koala, both cheering as Barry juggles popcorn and the movie set-up while dodging Dawnie, who’s zipping to and fro and making a gleeful nuisance of herself. 

Barry starts _The Lion King_ , balances the popcorn, and deftly catches Dawn on her next pass, hefting her to him before ducking into their Movie Fort. 

“Pinned ya!” Barry teases when Dawnie wriggles and laughs against him. This is a mistake. As soon as he settles down and lets her go she pounces, knocking him back so hard it sends Don shrieking after them and the popcorn bowl skittering. Iris catches Don with one arm and rescues the popcorn with her other hand, losing only a few casualties amongst the sea of pillows. 

“Pinned _you_!” Dawnie shouts, her face shining and red, her smile so wide her eyes scrunch closed. She promptly smashes her nose against Barry’s and declares, “Lion’s kiss!” 

Cross-eyed and a little teary, Barry falls apart with silent laughter. He reaches up and wraps his arms around his little girl and wonders how anyone ever expects him to let go. He eventually does though, wrestling her between him and Iris. 

The kids don’t make it past “Hakuna Matata”. Barry and Iris maneuver them to lay beside each other onto a pallet of pillows and blankets. They elect to stay on the floor to finish out the movie, backs propped against the couch, the cornerstone of their Movie Fort. Iris tucks herself under his arm and looks up at him until he feels her gaze and turns to her. 

“What?” He asks, a little breathless, because the look she’s wearing puts him in the mind of soft, golden mornings and stolen kisses. He’d give her the world just to keep that look on her face. 

“Just this,” she says simply and it doesn't really say anything but he thinks he knows what she means. He kisses her forehead. She reaches up and pulls him in for a lion’s kiss. 

 

**end.**


End file.
